Flare assemblies have been and continue to be utilized in various manners as defensive countermeasures. For instance, what may be characterized as “visual” flash flares have been utilized to at least generally distract, startle, and/or “throw off” a person responsible for guiding and/or aiming a missile, such as a laser guided missile, at an object, such as a tank or an airplane. A general premise behind these visual flash flares is that enough light in the visual wavelengths will be emitted via ignition of the associated payload that a person responsible for guiding and/or aiming a missile cannot help but be distracted by the magnitude of light produced. As one might expect from the magnitude of the desired output intensity, these visual flash flares typically exhibit a burn time of no more than about a couple seconds.
Conventional visual flash flares have typically included an ejectable payload made up of a loose or loosely packed, ignitable, granular composition. This granular payload composition has become undesirable for numerous reasons. For instance, low packing density exhibited by the granular compositions, inherent in some conventional visual flash flares, may result in to low energy density of the flare. As another detriment, transportation and storage of these types of flares may be expensive and has provided undesired detonation problems. These drawbacks, as well as others, seem to have made military units reluctant to employ these types of visual flash flare devices on board their aircraft.
Other prior art flare assemblies may be utilized to distract or “confuse” an infrared guided missile's guidance system into locking in on the infrared light from the flare assembly rather than the exhaust/plume of an aircraft. In this manner, flare assemblies have been utilized to decoy infrared guided missiles at least generally away from an aircraft. FIGS. 1A-B illustrate an example of a prior art flare pellet 20 utilized in infrared flare assemblies. These flare assemblies typically include one, and only one, flare pellet 20 that is generally press-formed to exhibit slightly smaller dimensions than the fully assembled flare. That is, the pellet 20 generally has a length 21, width 22, and depth (or thickness) 24 that is slightly smaller than the corresponding dimensions of the fully assembled flare. Eight longitudinal grooves 26 are defined in the outer surface 28 of the pellet 20 and run at least generally parallel to a longitudinal reference axis 23 of the pellet 20. These grooves 26 are generally included to increase an initial surface area of the flare pellet 20 for ease of igniting and to generally control the energy output of the flare pellet 20 upon ignition. However, the design of this flare pellet 20 has not provided desired output energy versus burn time performance when used in conjunction with certain spectrally balanced infrared flare formulations. That is, the flare pellet 20 has provided burn times that are longer than desired and energy outputs that are less than desired. This due, at least in significant part, to the flare pellet exhibiting a greater web than desired. Herein, “web” generally refers to a distance between the outer surface 28 of the pellet 20 and a portion of the pellet 20 which is generally found to be the last portion to burn. For example, a web of the pellet 20 of FIGS. 1A-B may refer to a distance 25 between a trough of the groove 26a and a lateral reference axis 27. To provide an idea of the web magnitude of the pellet 20, this distance 25 has generally been about 0.25 inch.
Past attempts to modify the design of the flare pellet 20 to increase its initial surface area and/or to decrease the magnitude of the web, with the goal of increasing its peak output energy level and reducing its burn time, have resulted in flare pellets having insufficient structural integrity resulting in fragmenting and/or breaking of the pellet 20 during normal launch, flight movement/vibration. For instance, holes have been drilled in various flare pellets to increase their surface area and, thus, the peak energy output of the flare pellets. However, these designs have broken apart or collapsed upon having an appropriate ejection force imposed thereon and/or have jammed in the flare launcher. Accordingly, these past attempts have provided insufficient and inconsistent results.
Developments in infrared guided missile technology have enabled guidance systems of missiles to discriminate and reject spectral signatures of some conventional flare assemblies utilized in defensive countermeasures. Any detected spectral signal in which the band intensities and/or band ratios do not conform to a particular target aircraft's distinctive signature would be “ignored” by the missile's guidance system. Accordingly, it is beneficial to provide countermeasure flares capable of providing a spectral signature similar to that of aircraft desired to be defended. To date, certain energetic compositions of spectrally balanced flare assemblies do not burn fast enough to give the desired results. Conventional approaches have not successfully reformulated the compositions to be faster burning without sacrificing spectral balance, structural integrity, safe storage, and/or safe transport.
Another example of a conventional flare is what may be referred to as a standard illumination flare assembly that includes a single cast or pressed flare pellet that has and outside circumference and one end inhibited from burning. These flare pellets are generally ignited on one end and burn from end-to-end. These types of standard illumination flare assemblies typically have burn times that are an order of magnitude higher than decoy flares, typically ranging from tens of seconds to one or more minutes. However, in exchange for the length of the burn time, these flares typically do not exhibit sufficient magnitudes of visual light output to distract weapons operators.